Feature Friday and a Shopping Spree

Hey Everyone! Hope everyone is having a Fabulous Friday! How could it not be fabulous? The weekend is right around the corner. YESSSSSssss!


Before we jump into Feature Friday this week I wanted to show you some goodies I bought on a recent shopping spree. I only bought like 3 things so it's not a spree so much I guess... There is a neat little store here in town called The Enchanted Door. They are one of the few places in Altus who sell home accessories. They have lots of cute stuff but since they are one of only 2 places in town they can afford to be pricey. 


So I was excited when they had they're after Christmas sale- all Christmas Decor 75% off! Score! I knew one thing for sure I wanted. These berry bush branches:

I had been eyeing them before Christmas thinking I could use them as Valentines Decor. Lucky for me they still had some left.

I also bought some ornaments that were grossly expensive before the sale but are super awesome. I thought I could keep one for me and use one for our family ornament exchange next year:

Bring the Bling!

And I also picked up a few of these glass balls for $1 each. They looked more Easter-y to me than Christmas. Not sure what I'm going to do with them but I'll figure it out. 

And now, without further Adeau today I want to introduce you Betsy Speert owner of the Betsy Speert's Blog! She's a retired designer and is now decorating book author, antique business running, chair upholstering bad @ss!

I am so jealous of her mad upholstery skillz! You know I have a chair fetish; check out this chair she redid for a neighbor:

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Dang girl! I wish you were my neighbor.

Some other awesome upholstery projects:

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Upholstered walls anyone?

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Besides awesome upholstery skills she has done some pretty amazing renovations as well. Check out her budget kitchen makeover:

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And look her gorgeously remodeled Florida Home:

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Nice! If you want to see more of Betsy go on over to Betsy Speert's Blog for more great projects!

So are you now thinking of learning upholstery yourself after seeing Betsy in action? Anyone else score some great after Christmas deals?

Photo Wall Inspiration & Tips

While planning Con-Man's room it's gotten me a little nostalgic for times past. I was scrolling through old photos of the fam and I realized we don't have a lot of them around the house. Blame it on digital photography and my laziness. So, everywhere around blog land I've seen some awesome photo walls.

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We have this blank barren wall in our living room that is just screaming for a photo treatment:

We have lots of family photos we've taken over the years, and will no doubt have some more when Tiny Falcon #2 shows up. So I was happy to receive an email from Crate and Barrel a few weeks ago giving some tips on planning a photo wall. 


From Crate & Barrel Mailer:


1. Choose a large wall with plenty of room to display your photos.


2. Decide on a theme for framing your photos. Choose from wood, metal, acrylic frames; or mix it up!


3. Use a mix of media. Start with family photos then add drawings, paintings, clocks, or other pieces you love.


4. Spread everything out on the floor. Move pieces around to see which look best next to each other.


5. Use a level to ensure all pictures are straight. Use two nails for larger pictures. (Use my tip for hanging pictures!)


6. And most important have fun!


Thanks Crate & Barrel- I've never bought anything from you but your email has lit a fire under my boo-tay and I'm ready to start planning my photo wall!


Have you done a photo wall? Any advice on how to get started or plan it?

Con-Man's New Room Inspiration

*We're currently living it up in New Orleans awaiting the big game- I'm running around the streets of New Orleans with a beignet in one hand and an LSU flag in the other. (No Hand Grenades this trip.) Wish my Tigers luck!*

Well the news is out and everyone knows- we are expecting Tiny Falcon #2 this summer. This means that Con-Man needs to give up the crib and move into a big boy bed. (This will probably be harder for me than for him.) Along with the new big boy bed will come a new big boy room!

Photo courtesy of MiaBella Photography

This is his room right now in a rare semi clean state; mainly because all his toys are currently strewn across our living room...

I haven't done much with it since we moved in; just moved his old nursery furniture in and was done with it. The chalk board walls were already there.

The main things he needs are a new bed, some closed storage (the cubes were great when he didn't have a lot of toys but now they tend to spill out all over the floor- will repurpose it for Tiny Falcon #2's room), some type of book storage, and some less baby-ish artwork.

I was having trouble coming up with an direction for Con-Man's new room. If you haven't noticed from my Pinterest pinning, it was all over the place. I knew I wanted to something car related (Con-Man LOVES cars, trains, planes- anything with wheels) but wasn't quite sure of the look I wanted.

Then bam! Last week I saw this bedding on the Land Of Nod website. I liked the color pallet and the facts that it isn't a "theme" and my imagination was off and running.

I like that you can pull different colors out of the bedding to give the room a different look:

The only problem with the bedding is that it's super expensive. So I'm planning to bust out my sewing machine and attempt to DIY it myself. Augh!!

From there I found these adorable prints on Etsy from Nevedobson. You can choose different vehicles and request different colors. I like the vintage look of them and think they are super cute! 

I like this graphic wall treatment; I want to incorporate something like it into Con-Man's 

room.

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I'm thinking of something like this for the curtains, I like the simple block look.

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He keeps getting more and more books, I think this is a cute way to store them. Nice and low to his level so he can reach them easily. Another DIY I know- I'm going to DIY myself to death in here!

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And I was thinking of painting over most of the chalkboard paint. He really only uses the one large wall and I think it would be nice to lighting things up a bit. (Any one ever paint over chalkboard paint? Is it a priming nightmare?) To store his chalk and other art supplies I like these metal bins. Again I'd mount these low so he can dig around and find what he needs.

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I'd like some large scale car themed artwork for his wall. I haven't found the perfect one yet- still on the look out.

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And as far as a new bed is concerned there's not much to choose from locally here in the middle of no where; so I'm biting the big one and am going to make Con-Man's bed. I like Pottery Barn inspired one from Anna White's website. I love all the storage! It will be my biggest wood building project to date- wish me luck!

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And of course the awesome bullet hole stop sign I found at a vintage shop! I am so in love with it and I hope that as Con-Man gets older he'll grow to love it to. I don't have a lot of experience with teenage boys but do you know one who wouldn't want a bullet hole stop sign in his room? Ultimate coolness factor.

I'll be keeping his current green rug, toy box, train table and will be fixing up his little school desk to match his new them. 

I'm super excited! This will be the first room in our new house that I'm "decorating" all out. I hope it turns out cute and that Con-Man likes it.

Feature Friday: RadCrafter

Happy Friday to Everyone! I hope your New Years has been off to a great start. I'm especially pumped up for this weekend because the biggest bowl game of the season is on Monday- The BCS Championship!! And my LSU Tigers will be there- and so will we! We're heading down to New Orleans to partake in the festivities. I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself!!!!

Anywho~ This week I wanted to feature an awesome DIY gal who does everything from Woodworking, sewing, and painting. Her name is Alida and she hosts the blog RadCrafter. She has been sewing since she was 10 years old; has honed her skills and has become a DIY expert. I mean, she asked for an air compressor for Christmas; my kind of gal!

Here are some of the awesome projects that caught my eye:

Industrial Factory Cart Table made from Pallets! She built this table with pallet wood for her mom; how cool is that?

An adorable Play Kitchen she built from scratch!

She has some amazing furniture makeovers as well- and you know I love a good makeover.

And super cute play food to go with the play kitchen- of course!

And check out her crafting skills~ She DIY'd these Antiqued Apothecary Jars. Nice!

If you liked this projects check out Alida's blog RadCrafter for more DIY, Crafty, Sewing inspiration!

And all I have to say is Go Girl ( and Geaux Tigers! )!

If your a DIY Maven or know someone who is and would like to be featured shoot me an email! rachellefalconatgmail.com. I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Quick Redo for the New Year

First project of the new year! Hooray!! 


Do you remember this chair I rescued from the trash a few months ago?

It looks a lot better than when first I found it. I had redone it to sell on consignment in a store here in town. My other pieces have sold but not this chair. Wah Wah....

Is it because of the fabric? Is it because she is a lonely single lady with out a mate? It could be any number of things but I set about remedying the two reasons above. New year new look for this little lady.

Enter this Lonely Single Guy I found at the Salvation Army this weekend:

Hey! Looks pretty similar to Single Lady up above! I snatched it up for $6 and set to work. I've been dragging around this fabric remnant I found at Ikea for only $1 (Score!) months and months- time to finally use it.

After a little deconstruction and a new coat of crisp white paint for both chairs we now have this!

There was barely enough fabric to cover both chairs, I had to use a solid black fabric to cover the rear of the seat backs. I like how they turned out. I like the way the bold large print fabric looks on the small scale chairs. It's more my style; whereas before I was trying to use a fabric I thought would appeal the more people. I was probably wrong since no one bought the original chair in the first place.

Not bad for a total of ~$8 for both chairs (first one was free!). Now that they're a couple hopefully someone one will take them home and they will live happily ever after!

Sorry for the short post but I've been compiling ideas and images for Con-Man's room. I'm so excited and I can't wait to show you next week!!!

Welcoming 2012 and Secret Exposed

I don't know about you guys but 2012 seems to be getting off to a good start! First of all- FOOD. 


Yep, gotta start the New Year out right. I'm from the South and there are certain foods we have to eat each year; it's been ingrained into my brain. You have to eat cabbage, black eyed peas, and ham on New Years. Or else you won't have any good luck, health, and you won't have any money! That's what my Mom always said; I'm not sure which represents which.


This was my first year making a ham. And I have to say it turned out pretty darn good. Check out this glaze!

It's a delicious mix of bourbon, molasses, orange marmalade, and a bunch of other really good stuff. Check out the recipe here.

First Glaze

All done!! Check it out!!!!

Along the ham we had steamed cabbage and Hoppin John and corn bread. Yum! 

Besides good food- I wanted to share some exciting news- I won the DIY Club's December Party Contest!! Woo Hoo! The DIY Club is an awesome site run by other bloggers who share their DIY projects and ideas. Every month they have a contest where you can enter your own project for a chance to win lots of prizes! If you haven't checked it out you should- you could win too!

I entered my Salvaged Wood Coffee Table and I won. Yay! Way to go Table. I'm excited about all the goodies from the prize package- lots of fun DIY stuff to use!

~~~And one other piece of exciting news~~~

I have been keeping a secret from you. I'm sorry- it's horrible of me. But I'm ready to spill the beans.

We are expecting a baby! Con-Man is going to be a big brother! Tiny Falcon #2 will be making an appearance in July.

He's excited (can you tell?). I wanted to surprise my family at Christmas, so I used my Silhouette to make Con-Man a T-Shirt that says- I'm The Big Brother! (It was a lot easier than my old method of T-Shirt making)

He wore it the night my family was opening presents- I didn't say anything at first; just let them catch on slowly. It was fun to see my sisters reactions. So this means that not only do I get do decorate a nursery, it means I really need to get my butt in gear with the Con-Man's Big Boy Room. For Real....